Misplaced loyalty

Misplaced loyalty (or mistaken loyalty, misguided loyalty or misplaced trust) is loyalty placed in other persons or organisations where that loyalty is not acknowledged or respected; is betrayed or taken advantage of. It can also mean loyalty to a malignant or misguided cause.

Social psychology provides a partial explanation for the phenomenon in the way "[T]he norm of social commitment directs us to honor our agreements. [...] People usually stick to the deal even though it has changed for the worse".Humanists point out that "[M]an inherits the capacity for loyalty, but not the use to which he shall put it [...] may unselfishly devote himself to what is petty or vile, as he may to what is generous and noble".

Part of the conventional therapeutic wisdom is 'that those of us who were unlucky enough to be raised by bad parents also get to be burdened as adults by their demands...we maintain a sense of misguided loyalty'. Under the rubric - 'Misplaced Loyalty: The Codependency Factor' - the self-help movement would strongly challenge such loyalty: 'in either individual therapy or self-help groups, the goal is to seek out and replace our misguided loyalty and attachment to our failed parents with attachment to healthier peers'.

Psychoanalysis would highlight the accompanying paradox that 'the child, it should be remembered, always defends the bad parent more ferociously than the good'. The paradox may help account for what have been called 'trauma bonds...the misplaced loyalties found in exploitive cults, incest families, or hostage and kidnapping situations, or codependents who live with alcoholics, compulsive gamblers or sex addicts'.

'Institutions develop powerful instruments of defence for their protection and perpetuation...develop misguided loyalty to committee and boards. To criticize forcibly rather than to cover up is to rock the boat'. Similarly, there are 'examples where misguided loyalty on the part of a business owner or manager has led to a decline in a business's performance'.

Sometimes however institutions are torn by conflicting codes of loyalty. Thus in the police, in-force loyalty, which 'has sometimes caused officers to lie and cheat on behalf of others...is now regarded as misplaced loyalty': in partial palliation, 'it must be understood that this "looking after one's mates" is a critical element of loyalty for those who face combat'.

...
Wikipedia